epidemiology | EVENT ★ ZETA-12 FINAL WEEK

EVENT ★ ZETA-12 FINAL WEEK

ZETA-12: FINAL WEEK

After team Audentes makes it out of the desert in more or less one piece, they'll begin to notice the environment changing once again. After the sparseness of the sands and canyons, vegetation and water once again become more common; eventually, they've found a lush jungle with plants and rivers both plentiful. And like the changing environment, the squidges once again begin to transform.

Please select an evolution according to your choice. Please note, you must have submitted your choice to the thread in the previous logs in order for your squidge to evolve.

For those who encountered the cave:

If they went into the cave, their squidge has taken on one of the following features: a fox-like tail, an armadillo snout (with tongue!), or enhanced sense of smell.

However, if they stayed above, their squidge has one of these: a beak, a prehensile tail, or enhanced sense of hearing.

THE JUNGLE (WEEK 6)

The jungle air is thick with humidity, light barely filtering down past the dense canopy of leaves overhead. Unlike the forest back at the beginning of the journey here, the climate in the jungle is almost stifling, so recruits may want to look for refreshing Rainbow Berries to snack on and keep their energy up -- but keep an eye out for the Lucifer's Poppy, as its effects can cause the journey to reach an abrupt end.

Rivers wind through the jungle, with waterfalls ending in relaxing pools where recruits can try to beat the heat and spend some extra time with their squidges as the journey's end approaches. Like the other biomes, there are no creatures here -- no birds, no bugs, no jungle cats -- but that doesn't mean that recruits can leave their guard down entirely. Apart from various poison plants (such as the Beezlebulb and the Malboro) other hazards to look out for include slippery, moss-covered ground cover that may cause a hapless recruit to lose their footing, and the dangers of heat exhaustion.

Unlike the previous biomes, there is no major choice for recruits to make here. Instead, they must bathe their squidge in the Wellspring, a bubbling, faintly glowing pool of water in the depths of the jungle. The Wellspring is responsible for triggering the squidges' final transformation and allowing them to grow into adulthood.

In order for squidges to evolve into an adult, squidge parents must have completed a certain amount of tasks during the Zeta-12 mission. If these tasks were not completed, the squidge will not evolve and will remain in its larval stage. The evolution form can be found on this post.

Squidges who successfully evolve into adults will grow in size, anywhere between 122-183cm (4-6'). They will loosely retain their rounded shapes, their limbs and torsos elongating, and any physical transformations will also grow with their size. In adulthood, squidges are less needy and frightened than in their larval stage, and generally have a calm demeanor (with exceptions made if they happened to pick up an aggressive trait along the journey, of course). Their language remains a wordless burbling, but they can communicate with their caregivers through gestures.

After bathing their squidges in the Wellspring, regardless of the success of evolutions, recruits should prepare to depart Zeta-12 with the knowledge that their alien children are better, stronger, and smarter for the time they spent together.

Fyletto

OOC NOTES

This log lasts ICly for one week, and OOCly for 1.5 weeks. Once the mission is completed and the squidges are bathed in the Wellspring, recruits will have until August 20th to say goodbye and let their alien wards leave the metaphorical nest.

Direct questions about the Zeta-12 mission here.

And don't forget about the bounty board! After August 20th, Zeta-12 bounties will no longer be completable.

Please remember to fill out your squidge success form! Participation is required to pass AC this month. If you have any questions about the form, please direct them here. Forms must be completed by August 31th, 23:59 UTC.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"Would you watch where you're going?" Laedo barked, harsh with the immediacy of the situation, but thankfully only spurred on by the fact that he was attempting to rein his own feelings under control. He had been busy with a projection from his ALASTAIR-given jewel, doing some last-day checks to ensure that others of the team had not been left behind anywhere, really just attempting to take his mind off of Ulale.

She was very different than she had been when she was small, and not just because she looked more elegant now, in as much as a sack of squishy, sparkling goo can look elegant. She had given him a quick, tight hug, and then pushed him back, crooning, and gestured over her shoulder to her own kind. And it had felt like that was as much of a goodbye as he was going to get. Laedo, having learned his lessons about chasing down that which he could never have, had pursed his lips and let her go.

Giovanni was a very sorry replacement. Still, closing his applications, looking the stoic humanoid over, he chuffed--still in human form, the gesture not very human--at the other man. "I'm surprised you're not over the moon to be nearly through with this, or has the heat taken the edge off of you?"

The smile lengthens, broadens, though there's something brittle and bitter around its edges that suggests...well. Something. Some undercurrent of tension that may not be immediately obvious to someone on the outside looking in, particularly not someone who'd witnessed his behaviour in the early stages of this mission, when he really had wanted nothing more than for it to be over and done with. Even with the odd expression stretched across his face, it's hard to see down into the core of it. To discern the fact that he's finding it hard to let go of the one thing that's ever needed him.

"Oh, I'm thrilled. The sooner we leave this dismal planet behind, the better, I'd say," and there's some truth in that, perhaps. This place, it's beaten him down and worn him out, made him feel things and face things he'd rather have had no part in. It's only Lily's absence that'll leave a hollowed-out space in him for weeks to come.

"You found the many perils of Oska too bland and spoiled for your tastes," Laedo retorted, guffawing in shocked surprise and amusement. 'Perils', in this instance, being the most sarcastic word possible. "You quailed at a bath of hot water. Now you're fleeing to it like a soft toe, afraid of having been stubbed?"

There's something nice about feeling like he's getting some of that sweet commeuppance back. Giovanni's never been his favourite person, and the fact that he hasn't seemed to change at all--at least from where Laedo stands, not seeing anything but a rictus smile that threatens more bullet-toothed laughs--only reinforces that.

Giovanni's smile turns sharp and vicious, chin tilting defiantly upwards as he regards the other recruit through eyes narrowed down into dangerous slivers (albeit unseen, hidden by the ALASTAIR glasses). There's some truth in there, perhaps that's the worst of it, and he's infinitely glad that he didn't run into Laedo in the desert when, for a moment, he had been beaten and quite literally floored by the rawness of the landscape and it's sickening difference to everything he's ever known. His mind may not be flaying and falling apart in the same way as it had been before ALASTAIR's temporary intervention, but he feels run through regardless. Struggling to cope.

If anything, it only pushes him to present a more vicious and caustic exterior than he had before.

"The only thing I find too bland and spoiled for my tastes is you. Perhaps if the company offered was somewhat less tedious I'd actually be able to enjoy myself," he says it lightly, as though bored, "you're incredibly pompous for an overgrown cat. It's a wonder how anyone can bear to be around you. Not surprising, then, that your charge has skipped off into the sunset without a backwards glance."

And he laughs.

Everything about Giovanni's statement cuts to the quick, in a way so immediate and surprising that the guffaw is washed from Laedo's face. He bares his teeth--not nearly as frightening in human form--and after a moment he pulls the larger of the two blades from his belt half-way from its sheathe. "You were made to foster a life over these last few weeks and so I'd have not had honour if I were to put you in your place, human, but that duty is over and you can't use it to shield you now. Speak gently or have your words returned along with your tongue on a platter!"

It's a satisfying response, watching that smug expression bleed out onto something more feral, something Giovanni more readily understands, and already there's the panting and rattling inside his head, the thing lodged in his Spine hissing yesyesyes and by his sides his trigger-fingers twitch. It would be good, wouldn't it? To sink his teeth into something more challenging than the snapping plants or that mindless swamp monster. It might help fill up the gaping cavity in his chest that his squidge has managed to carve out for itself.

He slides those eager hands into his jacket, towards the holsters, whips out the twin pistols he keeps bodyclose.

"I need no shield," his grin stretches wide, "and if you're so eager to play then I'm game."

Even Laedo is not so stupid as to bring a sword to a gun-fight, but he is tired of bearing Giovanni's snears, his manic smiles and psychotic laughter. He's never understood the man but he's sick of being treated like a non-entity, when really it should be the other way around. Pressing closer, hand still on his hilt as he bears down on the pale creature, he puts every inch he has on Giovanni to his advantage to stare down his nose at the human. "This is not a game," he speaks through gritted teeth. There's not a flash, not a hum, but if Giovanni is sensitive to such things he might feel a hint of Laedo's magic charging up around him and gathering like an angry storm head.

The increased proximity, the greater height-- neither thing seems to have the desired effect. Instead, Giovanni just stares up at his fellow recruit with that same uneven, maddening smile, head tilted slightly to one side and causally standing his ground. There's a little prickle of something passing through him, some shiver of unseen energy, but it has no more impact on him than Laedo's aggressive display.

"Of course it's a game. What else would it be?" he shrugs his narrow shoulders, finally takes a slow step back, raises one pistol until the barrel is flush against own chest, right over his heart, "when you're built like I am, it's hard to view it any other way."

And he pulls the trigger.

He staggers back another step, grunts as the pain pushes through him, but then he's straightening and smiling and still on his feet as the wound closes over and the smoke rises up, leaving nothing behind but a hole through his clothing and a visible circle of perfect, unmarred flesh. He spreads his arms wide, like an invitation.

"So please, be my guest. Do your worst."

That's the point at which Laedo's eyes widen and he hisses a short, sharp curse. Slamming the sword back into its sheath, rather than draw, he advances on Giovanni again, but not to fight. In a matter of moments he is buffeting the creature away from the springs, using whatever tactic is necessary to drag him away from the view of anyone else, squidge or Audentes member. Surely the noise of the shot will have drawn attention, but Giovanni's mad smile is all that Laedo sees right now.

"You're another Goddess-licked immortal," he spits, then with absolutely no qualms, he adds, "get your cursed hide away from these creatures and disturb them no more; you are not to corrupt their emergent society with your twisted soul! This game to you is a filth you spread! Go!"

That reaction, it isn't what he'd expected at all. He's prepared for violence, for the feel of steel against skin, or even for Laedo to back down and back off once he realises that pain and injury aren't things he has any concern for, but for the other recruit to grab hold of him and start dragging him off? It surprises him enough that - for the moment - he doesn't put up any kind of fight, only lets out a hissed exhale at the feel of pressure around the metal collar hidden beneath his clothes, at the bright sparks of pain that pass through him.

Is he...actually dragging him off by the scruff of his neck like some misbehaving pup? What is this!

He is dragging Giovanni off, at that, and only when they are a distance away from the clearing, hidden by trees and underbrush, does Laedo let go. He is still furious, moreso than before, but this is not the fury of a bitten ego. He is genuinely enraged that the safety of the team is in jeopardy, that the sanctity of the squidges they have toiled so long to save is at risk of being poisoned by such thoughtless displays of violence. Despite it all, knowing that Ulale is fully grown, and that the rest are closely following, Laedo is well aware that these creatures are incredibly impressionable to stimuli around them.

"How can you justify poisoning these creatures with your antics when you know that they imprint on every little event in their lives and make it a part of their own?" he snarls, pushing Giovanni right back against a tree if he can take advantage of that dumbfounded expression. "You're sick; you dare not spread that around."

And it works-- he's too accustomed to anyone outside of the Below responding only to the facade he presents, recoiling from something awful and strange and so filled with waiting violence that the only logical reactions can be to back away or meet that violence head on. To be dragged off like a badly behaved dog (ha ha) startles him enough that he does nothing when Laedo lets go of him, his back striking the tree as he's shoved up against it.

There's a moment when his face is wiped clean of razorblade smiles or the usual vacant indifference and instead he looks only surprised, incredibly young. Then his lips curl into something small and sharp and bitter and his shoulders rise and fall in a dismissive shrug.

"Perhaps I am sick, but this is what I was created to be. You can't expect a wolf not to bite you because you'd prefer it if it didn't."

"You were made incorrectly," Laedo spits back. "A wolf does not bite himself." Unlike with Haise, who attempts to keep a secret what he was made to be--tries with all his might to do right by those he is afraid he might hurt, here is a man who spits in the face of any who dare to come near him... and Laedo realizes in a moment that he's been calling the wrong person an abomination.

Pushing his luck, he fists his hand in the clothing at Giovanni's neck, despite the guns, despite the bladed smile. He has no patience now for the startled youth under dark glasses, though he as certainly seen that flicker of uncertainty just a moment ago. "If you were made to bite, you will point your fangs at outward threats, not those who you are meant to protect. If you cannot do this you will be treated like all caetrans who dare to hunt men."

You were made incorrectly. The words slam into him like a bullet to the gut and there's a moment where he can't will himself to move because that's right isn't it? Yes it is.

(Worthless mutt, useless dog stand up and fight.)

There's everything wrong with him, a broken crippled thing that's fractured and falling apart and it cuts into him down to the bone. After everything that's happened in this place, the awful desert and the open spaces and the sky as wide and ominous as a wound and the days and days and days of trudging monotony, it's hard to pull himself back from the slow inward slide so when Laedo takes hold of him again he doesn't shoot, doesn't bite or snap or snarl. He just stands there, motionless.

"Get off me," the words are delayed, and when they come they're softer than he'd intended them to be. Lack the usual sardonic drawl.

"I will not," Laedo replied, voice lowered, but far from soft. "You cannot understand the risk you pose. Until you promise to change your ways, or to stay out of the way of others, I will hound you."

It's enough. He's had enough, and finally he begins to move, arms slashing upwards with inhuman speed, pistols pointing at his fellow recruit as he emits a choked-off animal sound and finally - finally - pulls the triggers.

If Laedo had not been thrumming with magic compressed into a thin shield, he would have been dead. Though he had managed to survive the noxious spores breathed out by the creature in the swamp, that had been a matter of luck and the speed with which he was able to react to push the damaging substance from his lungs and veins... so unlike Giovanni, solid lead through his head would not have the benefit of healing over with no problem.

...As it stands, solid lead ejected at point-blank range is enough to deflect some force through the shield and Laedo, jaw cracked and face taking a wide-spread impact, is pushed back from Giovanni head-first as the bullets ricochet off of the barrier.

He doesn't know what happens next, for even as he falls backward he loses consciousness. Human forms are weak, pathetic things--just like his goddess had always intended.

Again it's unexpected, the backlash from the magical shield sending both bullets slamming back and into his own waiting flesh, one in the shoulder and the other right between the eyes. Pain flares hot and fierce just for a moment before brain function temporarily cuts out, sends him slumping to the base of the tree as Laedo falls back and away from him. He stays there for a while, onetwothreefour seconds before suddenly he's sitting up straight, dragging in a sharp and fractured breath.

It only takes a moment for him to remember what happened, to take in the sight of Laedo's fallen body, to drag himself to his feet. Worry shoots through him at the thought of the shot to the head, has him wondering just how well ALASTAIR has managed to patch up his biggest, most sickening flaw. Whether his memories will start slipping away from him all over again and he'll end up an empty mindless husk before he ever has the chance to return home.

But there's no point in dwelling on that, now. Instead he's pushing himself to his feet, aiming a sharp sullen kick at the motionless body in front of him before stepping over it and slinking off into the trees. He needs some time to collect himself, to regain his composure, and he doesn't give Laedo so much as a backwards glance as he stalks away from him.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

EVENT ★ ZETA-12 FINAL WEEK

Look at that sad sack~

He's not sad, he's tired!! That's right, just tired! haha..ha..ha ;;

'look at that tired sack' has a rather more alarming ring to it to all but the shippiest.......

oh god...hahahaha

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